Company

 

 

Turns out I'm not the only one in the house who is accompanied to the bathroom by little people. I found Charlie sitting on the step stool watching Evy use the restroom. Made me laugh.

Thanksgiving

My college roommate's family was in a car wreck this weekend. The accident killed her 9 year old daughter. I can't stop thinking about the pain that this family will carry forever. How do you move on from here? What are we supposed to learn from this tragedy?

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and this is a wake up call as to what my true blessings are. If you're on Facebook you see several people doing the daily "Thankful Posts." The posts from people who are thankful for their coffee or their iPhone are particularly irritating to me right now.

I'm sharing this horrible news so that perhaps Lauren's death can be a reminder to all of us to be grateful for our loved ones, to be patient with our loved ones, to appreciate our health and be as loving as we can be. It's a good reminder for me in particular because I'm often short on patience and get frustrated with my kids. I get wrapped up in our busy life and petty things become a big deal. Today Evy got the candy necklace at the grocery store and drank out of a flask at lunch. Because, really, who cares. When Charlie woke up at 5:15 this morning I wasn't irritated, instead I kissed her and played with her. I'll fall back in to my normal routine and forget to be thankful for the little things, but right now I'm trying to put things into perspective and find something positive in this tragedy.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

A Tale of Two Weekends

While I did this in Kansas City this weekend;

[Shopping. Lots of shopping.]

Scott did this at home;

[Children's Musum]

[Watched the game with some of the other dads and kids]

Toilet Talk

Evy's regular bedtime routine includes her spending at least 15 minutes going poopy. During the 15 minutes I continously ask "Are you done with your poopies?" because it takes her forever. Tonight she was particularly chatty during her 15 minutes. Here's our conversation:

Evy: When Jacob comes I'm going to show him how we sit down to go potty.
Me: Jacob is a boy, so he stands up to go potty.
Evy: That's right. He holds on to his penis and goes in the potty.
Me: That's right, so he doesn't need to sit down.
Evy: Where do his yuckies come from?
Me: You mean his poopies?
Evy: Yeah, his poopies.
Me: Well, boys have butts just like us and their poopies come from their butts.
Evy: Mom, you should say bottom and not butt.
Me: You're right, Evy. I meant bottom.
Evy: So, I get it. They have peanuts and butts.

Vacation Exhaustion

Traveling with young kids is no vacation. Scott and I were both exhausted after early mornings and wrangling Charlie during our outings. Charlie didn't sleep for a second on any of the flights but both kids were fast asleep within 5 minutes of getting in our car at the airport!

Florida Fun: Playing

This sweet baby. A memorable story from our vacation was Scott walking up to the hostess stand at a restaurant and saying "Four adults, one highchair, and one booster seat." Then Charlie threw up on Scott and on the floor of the restaurant. We canceled that seating request and promptly went home. Charlie didn't get sick again and thankfully no one else got sick. Perfect reminder that the kids are in charge and parents just have to roll with it.

We found a great playground in downtown Naples. It was so huge Scott thought he lost Evy at one point.

The Naples Children's Museum is unbelievable. The building is brand new and the exhibits are impressive. We spent two hours on the only rainy afternoon of our trip. Here, Evy pretends to be the mama bird and sits on her eggs.

Every day just before the museum closes the staff bring out musical instruments and lead the children in a parade around the museum. The parade was awesome to see and Evy loved it. The joy in her face, as she skipped around the museum, was truly priceless.

On most mornings we took a stroller ride to the park. One morning everyone in the family got a treat from Starbucks!

Florida Fun: Water!

Evy loved the pool at Grammy and Papa's complex. She spent two hours most afternoons swimming with Scott.

We found a splash pad at a park near the condo.

 

Look. at. these. thighs!!!

 

Evy also loved the beach! She ran up and down the beach chasing birds.

 

Charlie on the other hand preferred eating the sand, falling down, and getting pretty frustrated with the whole beach situation.

Not such a good family shot.

Florida Fun: Zoo Day

 

We just returned from visiting Scott's parents in Naples, FL

 

It was Charlie's first flight and our first flight wrangling two children!

 

We've decided that traveling gets a lot easier at age 4. Evy watched a movie and fell asleep while Charlie was busy, busy, busy!

Quick, Charlie is holding still for 30 seconds. Grab the camera!

 

 

On the first day in Florida Evy chose an outing to the zoo. Shocking. We were just at a zoo four days before that. 

 

Grammy and Papa gave the girls $20 to spend in the gift shop. The money was spent on the way in to the zoo! We got Charlie this lion so that she could have one of her own and stop stealing Evy's lions. Evy picked out a large white tiger that she named Aunt Julie.

 

 

Touring monkey island. For the rest of the trip Evy had fun playing "monkey island" with Grammy. Evy was a monkey named Dolly, her friend monkey was named Fernando and Grammy was instructed to bring children in a boat to look at Dolly and Fernando. I'm just glad Grammy was the one playing in this scenario!

 

Evy loves feeding fish and Papa loves shelling out the quarters. A perfect match!

 

Evy informed Grammy and Papa that "my mom and dad never let me feed the giraffes." Which is true, because we're never willing to pay for it on our zoo visits. But since this was vacation Evy got to feed the giraffe.